Christmas in everyday life

22 December 2008
MEDIA RELEASE

Christmas in everyday life

The Dean of Auckland’s Holy Trinity Cathedral says in this week of Christmas the temptation needs to be avoided of isolating the meaning of Christmas to the carols and the stories of Bethlehem.

The Cathedral has already had more than 15 thousand people attend various Christmas services with school and as community groups. The Very Rev’d Ross Bay says “Too often we look for God only in overtly religious rituals. But the message of Christmas is about the God who is found in human experience. Those experiences at the moment include what will occur as a result of economic hardship. Jesus is born not in a Temple but in a stable to a young unmarried woman. You could say that God is to be found in ‘improper’ places, rather than just in ‘holy’ places”.

Dean Bay says, “There have been several significant events at the Cathedral this year for the nation and the community. It is an ongoing aim for the Cathedral to respond to the context of the city in which it stands. That also requires us to be alert and responsive to what is occurring. God is found in the grittiness of everyday life. We are privileged to have a building such as the Cathedral in which to tell the Christmas story. We then need to go out and live it. That is not about restricting God to the tidy and precious moments of life, but instead responding to other people with hope and love”.

The Cathedral is expecting approximately three thousand people to attend Christmas services. A focus for children is the service on Christmas Eve with a drama at 6pm. That is followed by the 11:30pm Choral Eucharist and services at 8am and 9:30am on Christmas Day.

ENDS

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